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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

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rshow55 - 08:44pm Sep 15, 2002 EST (# 4327 of 4329)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Going Our Way By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/opinion/15FRIE.html

"It is crucial that as we confront Iraq, or other terrorist events, that we do it in a way that reinforces the positive global trends already in our favor.

" "That means," Mr. Mandelbaum said, "dealing with Iraq with as many allies as possible, with as broad an international endorsement as possible, so that confronting Iraq is seen as enforcing what are now widely accepted norms — rather than the policy of one particular country. We must act vis-à-vis Iraq in a way that persuades people that this is an international imperative, not an American preference."

"Never forget: We are winning. The terrorists and the rogues do not have the power to dislodge our world, or reverse the broad positive trends. Only we, the trendsetters, can do that — by acting in ways that would upset the trend toward peace, disrupt global markets and put the democracies at odds with one another. Do that, and we really would create a dangerous world — a world where the best Western ideals would be mismanaged and the country most important for sustaining those ideals — America — despised, weakened or discredited.

W.'s Conflicts of Interest By MAUREEN DOWD http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/opinion/15DOWD.html includes this:

At lunch with New York Times reporters on Friday, Tom Daschle was muted in his criticism of the president and conceded that Mr. Bush's transformation to a wartime leader would make him a formidable candidate.

Yet the senator worried that Mr. Bush's preference for pre-emption could wreak havoc with global stability, and he wondered whether attacking Iraq would damage relationships with Indonesia, Pakistan and Middle East allies necessary to root out terrorists. "Is this now more important than the war on terror?" he asked.

Last year, Tom Daschle , the Senate Majority Leader , pledged to try for workable patterns of discourse in A New Deal for a New Senate http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/10/opinion/10DASC.html

" I believe the only way forward is to embrace a spirit of principled compromise. What this requires is open debate, because it is only through debate that we can find new areas of agreement.

Open debate, to be solid, has to be based on reason and correct, checkable information.

Eisenhower became very concerned about patterns he'd seen, and warned against the military-industrial(political) complex in his FAREWELL ADDRESS of January 17, 1961 http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm

Everything Eisenhower was worried about has happened. People with power are going to have to ask that some key things be checked. It matters because the United States, intentionally or not, is setting up situations that lead to fighting and death, rather than peace and stability.

One way to handle many of these issues would be to discuss missile defense according to the patterns set out in MD1896-1899 rshow55 4/30/02 10:10am

But missile defense, and the problems associated with that muddled, expensive, deceptive mess - is only on part of larger questions. With the current concerns about Iraq, if people take time - - and insist on facts - - a great deal of muddle that is not in America's interest, or the world's, could be straightened out.

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